01 The Secret Garden Inside Our Lives
02 The Wonderful Illusion You Made Me Live
03 It Will Hurt Me If You Vanish
04 Our Unrational Mysterious Attraction
05 Our Hearts Were Broken By A Cold Data Transmission
06 A Fragile Bird Out Of The Nest
07 Your Precious Learnings To Get Me Some Self-Esteem
08 Our Little Shy Steps Together
09 I Can See The Universe Into Your Eyes
10 The Tiny Shadows Of Our Sublime Intimacy
11 One Day Our Hearts Will Collide Again

01 The Secret Garden Inside Our Lives
02 The Wonderful Illusion You Made Me Live
03 It Will Hurt Me If You Vanish
04 Our Unrational Mysterious Attraction
05 Our Hearts Were Broken By A Cold Data Transmission
06 A Fragile Bird Out Of The Nest
07 Your Precious Learnings To Get Me Some Self-Esteem
08 Our Little Shy Steps Together
09 I Can See The Universe Into Your Eyes
10 The Tiny Shadows Of Our Sublime Intimacy
11 One Day Our Hearts Will Collide Again

“The metaphysicals and spirituals of Love”

Diana Berti is the last (yet) musical expression of Francesco Baudazzi, a musician / anarchist / nostalgic artist from La Spezia, best known as Violet Poison. His releases span a huge amount of influent and important labels. Tragedy of the Uncommons is the debut tape of the new alias, while more news appeared on the official soundcloud page (where is possible to listen to two tracks out of the tape). The label on which is out (release date: last Halloween, a week ago) is the US Cuss Fetish, who has released about 15 tapes overall. The artworks are characterized by the use of Pink / Violet colour and a dark, black signature. Kind of a perfect matching with Violet as in Violet Poison, reminding of femininity and sensuality.

“Diana Berti is Alessandra Acciai in the movie “Il Gioko” (1989), a thriller by Lamberto Bava shot for Reteitalia“. These are some additional informative words provided to us by Francesco Baudazzi himself, and they help in addressing the user towards the optimal experience of listening to the tape: “I was fascinated by Berti’s fragility [] [she] lacks self-esteem and she’s mocked and avoided by her fellow countrymen and countrywomen just because she had a nervous breakdown (a reference in the album title, “Tragedy of the Uncommons”)”. Some tracks (11 total tracks for about 47 minutes) feature dialogues taken from the movie, heavily distorted through the use of delays and reverberations. They stand both for underlining the most dramatic moment in the record and to define a plot of events inside it. It’s even possible to think Tragedy of the Uncommons as the soundtrack of an imaginary oniric b-movie from the end of the 80s: the most strong example to bring along is the surprisingly animated ending of the tape (One Day Our Hearts Will Collide Again) – let’s talk about that later in the review, however.

“[she] lacks self-esteem and she’s mocked and avoided by her fellow countrymen and countrywomen”

The release portraits an ambient / synth-etic, beatless wandering (except for the last track, as mentioned before). The main instrument is the sequencer who builds a sort of unbreakable and cloudy smokescreen returing on cycles, obsessively. “I liked this cyclic nature, these rhythmic melodies in a minimalist interpretation, with subtle and imperceptible variations. Dorian scale, Korg Poly 800, some distortion, reverb, delay and some low-pitched ring modulation to create rhythmic articulation”. The source of inspiration for the artist are Suzanne Ciani (Seven Waves, 1982), Erik Satie (Gymonopédies), Enno Velthuys, plus “commercial jingles from 80s TV shows” and some reference to Giallo movies such as Phenomena by Dario Argento.

The characterizing colour is Pink, this time. The music is deprived by the sensual/sexual connotation of Violet, and the artist wants to tell us about the Metaphysics and spirituality of Love. The tracks’ titles are very explicative and express deep feelings of tenderness and veneration. This tape portraits – sometimes bringing the listener to feel distressed – something that could, at first sight, appear really distant from the average idea of Love and complicity. However, going into deeper analysis and managing to identify ourselves with the artist, the bond between sound and feeling is so self-evident that it could be totally overwhelming. Tragedy Of The Uncommons is the End transposed into music. It’s the extrication of truthful Love and the awareness of Nothingness. That’s Love in its essence, effectively Real, therefore unreal if related to what human beings are able to accept as True (denying Death). The tape is the meticulous description of the ideal representation of Love as it would have appeared in the Hyperuranion.

[Dino Campana]

In a moment / The roses have withered / The petals fallen / Because I could not forget the roses / We looked for them together / We found the roses / They were her roses they were my roses / We called this journey love / With our blood and with our tears / We were the roses / That shone for a moment in the morning sun / We withered them in the sun among the brambles / The roses that were not our roses / My roses her roses / P.S. And thus we forgot the roses.
Dino Campana

This piece of poetry is featured in the opening track, The Secret Garden Inside Our Lives, defining an intimate atmosphere in which sound is filtered as a moon beam would through the windows of a dark room. The Wonderful Illusion You Made Me Live is a big dream impossible to get out of – neither we would want to, being trapped by seducing visions. A distorted crescendo brings It Will Hurt Me If You Vanish in: underwater melodies are enriched by metallic and scratchy features, maybe in order to stress the feeling of vanishing in a vortex. The acid rain in Our Unrational Mysterious Attraction shapes the most “Violet Poison-like” tape’s track (knowing who the artist behind Diana Berti is, is mostly impossible not to notice some similar aspects between the two aliases). In Our Hearts Were Broken By A Cold Data Transmission is possible to hear a ringing phone inside the rhythmic pattern, which is sampling probably the most tensed moment in Bava’s movie. Deeply broody is A Fragile Bird Out Of The Nest, in which the dialogues taken by the film are almost understandable.

Your Precious Learnings To Get Me Some Self-Esteem articulates in low-pitched, edgy funeral chimes, bringing the listener to feel uncomfortable. To a certain extent Our Little Shy Steps Together is quiet and placid, until it fades into I Can See The Universe Into Your Eyes which is one of the highlights of the record. I Can See The Universe is a dreamy, careless chant of Love. It is expressed through a 8-bit-like loop, featuring softly-out-of-tune hints that the focused listener easily manages to catch and possibly would load of new meanings. The Tiny Shadows Of Our Sublime Intimacy is the most slow-dynamics, dark episode in Tragedy of the Uncommons. The closure is occupied by One Day Our Hearts Will Collide Again – the only track in which the beat is used. Considering the scenario in which music on the tape has been produced – i.e. the close relationship with Bava’s Il Gioko, the reference to Phenomena by Argento, the strong oniric connotations – is fine to associate the track to some imaginary movie’s lively ending titles, erupting right after the quizzical final scene has been displayed. Tragedy of the Uncommons is a rare gem letting the listener face the strongest feelings of every-day life. The same ones that tear through our existence, and bring us to feel we’re living out our own personal tragedy of the uncommons.

A. and C. have been living in Turin, Italy since late 2015. The former is pursuing his PhD in Telecommunications Engineering and considers Guy Picciotto being the repository of happiness in life, the latter is currently studying sculpture at Accademia di Belle Arti where she messes around with materials and fantasizes about turning into a bunny.

Andrea Migliorati e Cristina Ruggieri

A. and C. have been living in Turin, Italy since late 2015. The former is pursuing his PhD in Telecommunications Engineering and considers Guy Picciotto being the repository of happiness in life, the latter is currently studying sculpture at Accademia di Belle Arti where she messes around with materials and fantasizes about turning into a bunny.

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